Here are a few important numbers to consider when talking about the wooden utility poles used to deliver electricity to Liberty’s customers in Southwest Missouri, Southeast Kansas, Northeast Oklahoma, and Northwest Arkansas.
Liberty's service region has approximately 220,000 poles in total. We plan to inspect approximately 17,000 poles each year. Of those, about 15,000 provide distribution (power lines for shorter distances and a lower voltage serving homes and businesses), while 2,000 provide transmission (long-distance, high-voltage from generation sites to substations). The poles – made of Southern pine – are most commonly 40 to 45 feet high, though they can go up to 65 feet or higher.
If you think keeping up with the condition of those poles is a tall order, you’d be correct.
Those 17,000 poles are intrusively inspected on a 12-year cycle – a process that includes core testing around the pole, diagnostics that measure such things as shell strength, and applying treatment for fungus and insects where needed, says Eric Babbitt, Liberty’s Director-Line Operations Transmission & Distribution. In 2024, a third of the way through a new inspection cycle, those efforts are paying off.
“Between 2008 and 2020, Liberty inspected every primary pole,” he says. “In this current cycle, we’ve seen the rejection rate decline significantly … to maybe 3 or 4 percent annually.”
The decline in the number of poles rejected ultimately means reduced work for the Liberty team and a cost savings for electric customers.
When this boots-on-the ground approach determines that a particular pole needs to be replaced, the contractors partnering with Liberty will remove it and install a new one. Total replacement isn’t always required, however.
“Reinforcing a pole with a steel truss and banding can effectively add about 20 years of life to that structure,” Babbitt says.
Liberty’s pole inspections are designed to promote the continued safe and reliable service provided to the region.
“Inspecting and replacing poles is definitely a reliability driver,” says Babbitt. “We’re working to ramp up the programs so that it’s sustainable and repeatable, and to reject those poles that do not meet our standards.”